The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1887-05-05
NOT SMOOTH SAILING.


mans Way OF Reaching the Presidential
Nomination.
The boom for John Sherman as the
Republican candidate in 1888 is assum-
ing, under judicious management, very
promising proportions Its most inter-
ssting feature is its many-sldedness.
70 large numbers of Republicans 1t
presents itself as relief from the
Blaine incubus under which they have
rested so long and which they have
found it so difficult to throw Off To
sured financial views who can carry
New York and possibly reconcile the
Mugwumps. To another class he is the
coming pacifcator of the South who is
to rend asunder more effectively than
any other Republican the solidity of
that section.
Yet it is not all plain sailing even in
his own party for the friend of the
New York banks and the discoverer of
Eliza Pinkston. Two formidable OBJ
stacles lie in the channel through
which he must pass to nomination;
and there seems to be no present
method of passing or removing them.
The first is the opposition of the pro-
gressive Republicans, who believe,
like Senator Hawley, of Connecticut, in
local self-government and the abandop-
ment of paternalism in Government.
Upon this point, for the purpose of
catching Southern support, Sherman
has irrevocably committed himself. In
his Southern speeches he avowed him.
self heartily in favor of the principle
which lies at the bottom of the Blair
bill for aiding the States to educate the
rising generation. 1t was not wholly
new attitude for him. He has always
been q supporter of subsidies; and
there is no essential difference between
supporting one subsidy to aid an in
fuential monopoly and supporting
another to secure votes. Neither is
the attitude at variance with the gen.
eral attitude of the Republican party.
It Is exceedingly obnoxious, however,
to the better elements of the party; and
If Senator Sherman adheres to it he
can not count on their support in con-
vention.
Upon another point Senator Sher-
man is in rank antagonism to a large
element of his party, though it is not
so worthy or reputable an element as
that which opposes his subsidy no
tions. While this element may be will
ing to cut loose from the "bloody
Shirt with all that the old war cry i'm
plies, it is determined to cling still to
the hypocritical hypothesis that the
party is the special guardian of moral
ideas. But Sherman has deliberately
declared against the '.moral idea"
dodge. In effect, he has proclaimed
the erasure from the party gonfalon Of
the cabalistic ''g. o. p" In his letter
to the Young Republican Club of Vir-
ginia he distinctly outlined the future
of the Republican party as a future de-
voted to the development and the di-
versifcation of American history.
There is to be no brooding over the
dead past, he says; no more crusading
against real or imaginary wrong. The
end and aim of the party, next to the
securing of its own continuance in
| power, is business.
This will probably satisfy the pro
nounced protectionists in the party,
though many even of these will regret
the abandonment of the snivel and the
whine. But to an immense faction in
the party the snivel and the whine are
indispensable. They would not know
what to do with themselves in a party
that plants itself on a business issue
and refuses to plume itself upon it,
devotion to the righting of wrongs
And as natural consequence this fac
ton can not support Sherman.
All of which goes to show that the
way of the aspirant to a Presidentia
nomination. is hard. Detroit Free Press